Are College Athletes Close To Getting Paid?

It looks like we are quickly getting into a world, where college athletes will get paid for their contributions to the university.

NCAA is considering a pay scale to pay athletes at the annual NCAA Convention in San Diego.

Dennis Dood of CBS Sports breaks down what this could mean for college sports as it blends the line between the student-athlete and professional.

Call it what you want — a stipend, the full cost of attendance — it’s really just semantics now as the NCAA changes the fundamental way it does business. The how and why of compensating athletes will be perhaps the key issue this week at the annual NCAA Convention in San Diego.

It promises to be one of the most significant events in the association’s 108-year history. Mainly because we’re suddenly traveling down a road we never thought would never get any traffic …

And when NCAA restructuring is finalized later this year, athletes almost certainly will be sharing in the money they helped produce for their institutions.

He continues by explaining what it means for the NCAA to rebuild its brand, and pay the new student-athlete.

In the end, it will be a battle for the NCAA’s relevance. Without a new model that includes player compensation, the Big 5 conferences — SEC, ACC, Pac-12, Big 12, Big Ten — have suggested they could break away and form their own organization. There would be little use for having an NCAA without those 65 schools.

Leveraging their power, the Big 5 have told the NCAA that change must come or else. They are tired of being more observers to the process than direct participants.

It will start with paying athletes. Nine-figure athletic budgets built with the sweat of uncompensated amateur athletes are now viewed as a grand injustice. It’s just the tenor of the times. In the big picture, the amount won’t be much. The richer schools will be able to afford more (perhaps upwards of $5,000 per player) than less-affluent institutions.

Paying those athletes some amount of money above their scholarship probably will be optional. But a day when an Ohio State point guard making $5K plays against a Bowling Green counterpart making $1,000 is upon us.

So do you think the NCAA should turn to paying student athletes? Should they just allow the student athletes to be able to get their own money off of their likeness? What should happen? Let us know below.